If anyone here uses duolingo for learning I promise you literally Anki flashcards are better (and thats not perfect for learning a language) Duolingo practices memorization of phrases more than actual spoken language. Its for rich tourists who need to pack in a couple phrases.

I took duolingo for 5 years to learn spanish and I couldn't understand anything spoken to me or really read that much at all. But I created my own study method based on how we ACTUALLY learn languages and I learned japanese in a year. OFC im not perfect at japanese but im like B1~B2 area. I've even started discussing marxism with my japanese friends.

Just use Anki for studying individual words, learn grammar through free resources, and LISTEN,READ, WRITE, AND SPEAK the language for the love of god. Find books in the target language for kids, find friends who are also learning or better yet, who are natives in the target language.

Duolingo is a massive massive massive waste of time. It's tricking you with the "gamifying" mechanics. Opiod of the masses is a satisfying ding and bright colors sdgdfasfgsfdgasdfsgsdfgsdgfsdf.

No but seriously, it's way easier than it seems to learn a language. ESP now with the internet.

I learned Japanese in a year in a really really really intense study program I made for myself but you can chill on it and be able to be conversational on it p quickly. Same for spanish which i also speak. (Tried to learn it on duolingo for 5 years but gave up with little progress and did it this way, like with Japanese.

Apps and textbooks have trouble teaching you languages that are spoken in REAL life. To learn a language you just need comprehensible input. I also used flashcards to study words with Anki.

The strategy I had was: Step 0: have good motivation to learn it(have friends/family/partners who speak the target language) Step 1: Learn the alphabet of the target language Step 2: Begin Study of the top 2000 most common words Step 3: Learn simply phrases preferably with those words that I would use. Step 4: begin speaking as soon as possible. I started speaking to people when I only had like 600 words under my belt. Step 5: Listen and Read childrens media related to the language(this part suuuuuuuucks) Step 6: As you are nearing the end of top 2000 words you'll encounter new words you might be curious about or you might want to use. Add these to your study deck. Step 7: Study simple common grammar rules. BUT DONT OVER DO THIS. (If you know 100 grammar rules but 10 words you cant say much, but if you speak 100 words and know 10 grammar rules you can communicate quite a bit. Think of it like grammar is a multiplier and words are the base number) Step 8: Speak, listen, read, and (if you like) write in the language as much as possible. Replace your TV with target language TV. Music with target language music. Try to focus on listening sometimes and other times just chill with it.

You have to be ok with embarrassing yourself. You're like a baby learning, just keep going. Eventually youll find you can string entire thoughts and jokes together. Repetition is super important, input and use stuff over and over and it becomes second nature and you understand or speak it without thinking, much like your native language.

Around 10,000 words is what is known and spoken for most young adults. Focus on stuff your interested in or stuff you think youll need to talk about. If anki sucks to do and you cant keep it up just focus more on input with the language through other sources like media or books.

Depending on the difficulty of the target language you can get conversational p fast. Remember, babies are stupid and take like 18 years to get to 10,000 words. But we're smart adults and can structure our study towards our goals.

I learned Japanese and I hate anime. My biggest gripe about anime is the absolute awful way women are treated in most of them. Like yeah tons of fanservice in western stuff but I hate the male gazey way they go about it. There are ways of doing fan service without just having constant groping and tit or figure shots. In most anime the women characters barley have a personality or any skills, even if they do they are often shunted to the side to make way for all the men characters in spite of their proficiency. Its like im watching a show made from 50's America posters. "Back to the kitchen woman" type shit. holy fucking shit its so bad and so constant. Anime in the early 90's/late 80's and modern anime are better at it SOMETIMES.

An anime thats really good about it is 薬屋のひとりごと (Apothecary diaries). Women are the main characters of that show and them being pushed off or ignored is part of the hardships that they face. Women are allowed to be beautiful and cute and attractive without it being the entirety of their character and each introduction of them just close up shots of their tits in a new revealing outfit.

Anime is an immensely hard watch for me and i've taken to literally RESEARCHING FEMINIST ARTICLES IN JAPANESE to find ones that treat women halfway decent. Even then they can be pretty bad because of how serious the feminist movement in japan is seen. Women trying to fight for the right to keep their name in marriage being seen as a ridiculous demand by EVEN WOMEN IN POLITICS bghgbgbhg.

少女革命ウテナ (Revolutionary girl Utena) is another good one that treats its women with respect while breaking expectations placed on them. カウボーイビバップ (Cowboy beepop) is mostly good at its portrayals, even having a character with a complicated relationship with her gender.

I've watched so many anime because of my friends being weebs and also because of my Japanese studies. I promise if you have a favorite anime you think is exempt chances are you're forgetting all the sucky moments. One of my friends tried to show me 3 anime they thought were clear only for them not to be, and one to be the worst I'd seen in AWHILE..

Tl;DR Anime generally treats women horribly and its extremely hard to watch or enjoy

As an artist I'd love to see suggestions in this thread. The specific recommendations might be different country to country or smaller districts. Something thats difficult for the US is that a lotta people are doing jobs related to tech and there's not really a single unifying symbol for this. Hammer and sickle to represent farming and manufacturing is possible, and I believe adding a brush branches out to a wider movement.

But finding symbols to speak to the workers as a whole can be difficult with how diverse it all is. Theres so many hyper specialized machines and tools.

When making Icons before I've used my states iconography and Black panthers, and queer symbols like the pink triangle. This is extremely important and a good symbol will speak to the audiences you want and pull dedicated people into the movement.

It might be necessary to focus on smaller regions within the US and Unite those before creating broader movements. (OFC whichever is in the best interests of the end goal of revolution at that time.) I can only speak to the US however

Part of the reason we have so few blood types is because humans nearly went extinct during the ice age. I think estimates put around 2000~ humans alive at one point. Because of this massive bottle neck, humans of today arent as diverse as you find in other species. It also explains why we don't really have much sexual dimorphism in comparison to other species as well. Except, species that also went through similar near extinction events, for example; Hyenas. They also went through a similar near extinction event and as a result have a ton of associated diseases having to do with it. Just like us.

This is useful because it means animals we drive to near extinction will be altered for thousands of years onward even if we were to vanish right now.

coincidentally, Trotsky's valentine has identical text

Occurs to me this is a buy European board....this is still decent advice for ppl but uh....yeah

IG we all jokin on american's

Strange this hasn't been suggested before, but seriously build relationships in your community to bring them closer to class consciousness and revolutionary ideas. Find a small group that you can REALLY REALLY REALLY trust as revolutionaries and do what you can.

Organize housing unions, workers unions, mutual aid, help people enroll in food or health programs that they are eligible for. Spend time in clubs and public areas, reach out to people and become a notable and well liked community member. (If publicity would prevent you from doing certain actions or make it too dangerous then avoid notoriety)Learn any skill someone is willing to teach you. And teach anyone who will listen your skills, and help each other. Find people who are more agreeable first, don't go to the house with the fuckin nazi flag preaching about communism. People who are more likely to act, and more likely to be agreeable are often already acting in events with similar views. Like protests, garden groups, unions, etc.

Make Zines and posters of acute class contradictions in your area. My area has especially bad landlords with no union so I'm working to fix that and show people the issues with landlords owning everything. Repair stuff, wear slogan t-shirts and signs and pick up trash. Let these ideas be seen, as that's one way we are kept suppressed.

You want to make connections with people actually in your area and find other revolutionaries. No matter where you are chances are there's a good dozen who are also looking for someone to organize with. You personally do not need to convince every person in your area, find comrades. If you know some online find out what you can do together, visit each other, help organize, share knowledge, etc.

America suffers from the lack of a unifying leftist party. There are several groups people might be interested in but they've never even heard of. There are people in my area who haven't even heard of the DSA. Often you'll find there's only like one branch of any given leftist group in your state. If the people are already uniting together with leftist ideals, they're more likely to join a state wide or national movement. (If people are already helping each other with food stamps and medical aid, they're more likely to join a DSA push for housing unions in your area etc.)

There is TONS to do comrade, look around. I understand the desire to be told what to do but you truly have the power to unite people with this knowledge.

TBH this should work for a lotta revolutionaries wondering what to do. This is how you build public support for revolution in your area.

It was a video he made and removed that was about knitting and programming and how theyre connected in some ways. But he spent the entire video making very overt comments on how "simple" and "unimportant" knitting is. Even implying it requires no thought and even kids can do it. Its really fuckin weird honestly. But obviously he got called out for comparing a historically predominantly woman owned skill to something that takes lil to no effort and anyone can do it with no thought.

He then deleted the video and IDK what he said in response. Never liked the guy so idk. There's tons of videos of people reacting to it.

I was very lucky and despite growing up in the middle of nowhere, with conservative homophobic parents and going to church 3ish times a week. I just didn't buy into it, I wasn't really engaged in politics till I was older but I always carried the golden rule and I thought it was dumb how queer people were treated over something that doesn't matter. Then I spotted tons of contradictions in the bible that I never talked to people about because I didn't trust them. I constantly touched onto communism even as like a 10 year old but was constantly shooting myself down with typical rhetoric; "Too bad it doesn't work" "shame it always leads to dictatorships" etc. Even was harassed by our police chief when he though he was being funny many times and arrested for carrying wooden sword on the side of the road as I was walking over an hour to the park.

The final thing that tipped me though, one of my friends said they were communist and I finally had someone to talk with about it who was actually educated and was able to get me past the self policing stage. it was just a landslide from there, constantly questioning what I thought I knew about everything. Researched Che guevera and Cuba's revolution got me revolutionary, turned this into a life path for me.

All I needed was someone educated on this stuff to exist. But I got very very lucky by being empathetic and not trusting adults around me early on.

Speak to real people and deprogram them, its a fuckin lifelong effort apparently but each one you convince joins in your efforts. I've convinced tons of people of how awesome cuba is before and now theyre all rightfully pissed at this shit.

TBH Wish i could join efforts like this if i wasnt outside of the americas rn.

When I return?? its fuckin instant action.

Support for the LDP, sanseito and conservitive ideas is mostly within the youth in japan https://mainichi.jp/articles/20251026/k00/00m/010/303000c

日本共産党 is notoriously an old people thing. If you just search this term on Japanese websites youll find tons of people saying the usual anti communist bullshit +Japanese. When the election happened I saw a couple that were "日本共産党は日本の敵です" "The communist part is the enemy of the people" It had a picture of a pamphlet from them that simply acknowledged US aggression and called for lessening japans reliance on them. It also called for a higher tax on the rich. and "こいつらを逮捕できないのは何かのバグだろ…" "It's a (programming) bug that we cant arrest these guys" There was even one I'm not sure how it was worded that called for 京都 Kyoto to be burned because its "where all the communists are" even though i think southern Tokyo was a hotspot

Not to say all older people do, its just their usual crowd is older because they've become less effective at actually reaching people over the years and their supporters have simply aged...that being said they can still be reactionary. There was a street interview I saw where a lady was in support of the communist party but was considering going with Sanseito because she hated what "chinese and indians were doing to japan" and that "white people were okay"

Its just Western/Imperial propoganda rotting the minds and a really ineffective incompetent left party. Which lets be real is basically just liberal, the actual revolutionaries branched off and arent in the party.

Also Takaichi is just seen as cool, she had a lotta hobbies before like being in a band, liking metal, riding a bike, she's just a cult of personality and pulled with it. Talking about politics is frowned upon by older generations but most younger ppl dont care about many traditions. It's just a theory, but I wouldn't be surprised if this helped her gain notoriety because people just talk about the cool stuff rather than the political stuff.